I'm running the latest version of firefox 17.0.1 on ubuntu 12.10 on a Acer Aspire One 722 Netbook. It has an amd dual core C60 processor and 2GB RAM.

As you can see, firefox is absolutely killing my system, it responds really slowly and opening tabs is a royal pain. I have on an average 4-5 open tabs at a given time. Is there something that I can do to make my browsing experience more zippy?

I have taken you advice and installed chrome, it seems to be better in terms of performance right now. I think I 'll come back to firefox after a couple of releases. I like it a lot but lets see.
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nikhilDec 7 '12 at 18:25

It's possible that something in your browser profile is causing the problem. One possible solution is to use the fairly new "reset firefox" process, which will create a new firefox profile for you with most of your settings preserved.

Warning: not all settings will be preserved, read the link below carefully first!

At the top of the Firefox window, click the Help menu and select Troubleshooting Information.

Click the Reset Firefox button in the upper-right corner of the Troubleshooting Information page.

To continue, click Reset Firefox in the confirmation window that opens.

Firefox will close and be reset. When it's done, a window will list the information that was imported. Click Finish and Firefox will open. That's it – you're done!